


drowning in dreams

by mindyfication



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, M/M, Post-Season/Series 07, Rufus Turner's Cabin, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 01:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10866183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindyfication/pseuds/mindyfication
Summary: Instead of hitting a dog in Texas, Sam holes up in Rufus's cabin after Dean goes to purgatory.Needless to say, he isn't handling things well.





	drowning in dreams

Sam stumbles into Rufus’s cabin, more drunk than he should be. The fucking demon was right, he’s _alone_. It’s only been three days, but each feel like a whiskey-soaked eternity. Tomorrow he’ll search for real, maybe get a witch or a better psychic to help him. If Crowley didn’t lie, and wasn’t that the biggest if of the century, if he didn’t lie then Dean was in purgatory. And for once, Sam’s been procrastinating on research. He’s already urgently looked for ways to get in and out of purgatory when they had a leviathan problem, can’t free them all to maybe, probably not, get Dean back. 

He doesn’t get around to researching the next day, curls up with tequila instead. 

He should be hunting. Or going after the mystical normal life. Something. 

The next day is rum, and at this rate the cabin is gonna be out of any alcohol inside of a week. He doesn’t slow down, bitterly thinks of famine saying he was the only one who could always consume more, the exception. Five drinks deep and his head starts to spin, six and he doesn’t think anymore, mindlessly watching whatever’s on tv. He likes the cartoons, always easy to follow and bitterly nostalgic, chase it down with more alcohol.

Rufus sure had a lot of rum for someone who never seemed to drink it, three days worth. Then there’s the vodka, it goes with a half-hearted attempt to clean up. There’s a bottle of port, old and fruity and rich, begging to be sipped slowly over a chess match or a good book. He drinks it outside, fresh air reminding him he should really shower and do his laundry. (He takes a bath instead, more literally stewing in his own filth, finishing off the bottle.) 

Laundry goes with some overly sweet peach liquor and Sam is too close to sober, has emptied out every form of hunter’s helper to be had. He doesn’t want to go into town, something about seeing other people seems far worse than sobriety- today anyways. 

The inevitable sobriety comes with an obsessive state like before without Dean. Without hunting a pseudo-trickster, he has the cabin cleaner than it has ever been. He scrubs his own skin off every morning, doesn’t leave the shower until he’s flushed pink. He works out after, the repetitive steady 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, of sit-ups and push-ups and chin-ups and jumping jacks. And then he showers again, a cold and quick rinse. 

He finds nothing new on purgatory, and worse he’s running low on food. Tomorrow he’ll have to go to town, see what’s become of the world. His stomach twists unpleasantly, and a voice that sounds like his brother wonders when he became such a fucking pansy. 

.

He’s halfway through his push-ups when he hears a car. His stomach knots up as he stands, grabbing the nearest gun. He looks out the window and nearly drops the pistol, sees Dean unloading a forgettable car. 

“Hey lazybones, you gonna help?” Dean yells and Sam laughs breathless, rushes outside. 

“Dean! How are you-”

“One minute,” Dean interrupts him, slicing his arm open and drinking holy water. Sam does the same, wincing at the salted water’s taste, handing the stuff back and enveloping his brother in a tight hug. 

“How did you get out of purgatory? There was nothing in the lore-” Sam says, still holding him. 

Dean grins, “C’mon hell couldn’t hold me, you though some second-rate monster land could? I’m starving, let’s get inside and we’ll talk.” 

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, squeezing his brother once more before grabbing a bag. “You went grocery shopping?” Sam lets out a soft laugh, “Holy shit this is from a real grocery store.” 

“Shut up if you want my cooking,” Dean says, hip checking the door open. “This last month I’ve existed without food, I could literally eat an entire horse.” 

Guilt comes back quick and before he can ask, Dean whistles, putting the groceries on the counter. “Well aren’t you the little homemaker Sammy.” 

“Jerk,” Sam says, can’t help a smile. Dean was _back_ , it still feels like a dream. 

“Bitch,” Dean tosses back carelessly, opening the fridge. “Or not, shit where’s the food kiddo?” 

Sam puts away the groceries, not meeting Dean’s eyes. “I was gonna get some today.” 

Dean snorts, “Lucky timing then.” 

There’s more fresh food in the cabin than there probably ever has been, and he can’t deny being excited about not eating another canned or dried meal. Dean has two steaks cooking when he finally talks about it. 

“Purgatory was designed to hold monsters, not people. There was an escape hatch- I couldn’t-” Dean swallows. “It took a while to get there, lot of fighting. Cas didn’t make it out.” 

Sam swallows, “Maybe we could-”

“No,” Dean interrupts firmly. “The leviathans got to him, they all wanted him.” 

Sam sighs, pushes back the tears. If Dean isn’t going all emo, he won’t. And it wasn’t like Sam hadn’t tried to-. Dean was alive, that’s all that mattered. 

Dean slaps a steak on his plate and grabs two beers from the fridge. “First supper.” 

Sam’s lips twitch, cutting into the meat. “Next time I’ll make some corn or mashed potatoes.” It hits him then that Dean might want to get back on the road, probably sees spending extra time in the cabin as a waste.

Dean rolls his eyes though, “You gonna make sure I eat my leafy greens?” 

“Damn straight,” Sam says, happiness bubbling up. “Enough spinach and maybe you won’t get scurvy.” 

“All the coolest pirates had scurvy,” Dean says, and they’re both too busy eating to talk more. Sam knows Dean’s a decent cook, and maybe it’s partly from how long it’s been since he ate fresh food, but the steak is beyond perfect. 

He slowly eats the last bite, savoring it. “That was amazing.” 

Dean grins, leaning back and rubbing his belly, “I know.”

Want surges through him, and Sam pushes it down, gets up and grabs their plates. The dishes won’t take long, but he needs a little distraction. It’s only been one day and the traitorous thoughts are coming back. 

“Good wife,” Dean jokes as he scrubs the pan clean. 

It rolls off him easy, he’s used to this type of teasing. “Says the one that just cooked for us,” Sam shoots back. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says and he hears him gulp down the rest of his beer. The image comes to mind too easily, one he’s seen countless times of Dean’s plush lips wrapped around a bottle. Sam scrubs harder, the final bit of grit coming off, and he washes it clean. They didn’t make a mess in the kitchen, a few water rings from the beer, but Dean will know something’s up if he wipes those off. (He has Dean now, he shouldn’t even want to.)

“I’ve been thinking,” Dean says.

“About what?” Sam asks, refrains from saying _what’s the case_.

Dean wets his lips, “I wanna take a break.” 

Sam can’t breathe, eyes wide and afraid he might wake up. 

“A real one, not like two days or a concert. Like a year. We’ll still be in touch if anyone needs help, but hands off. No more dying and saving the world and self-sacrifice.” Dean rubs his face, “I’m so tired man, I can’t keep running on empty.” 

This can’t be real, a djinn must have snuck up on him. There’s no way-

“Sammy? What do you think?” 

“Yes,” Sam breathes, doesn’t care that this can’t be real. There’s no way Dean would ever stop, certainly wouldn’t choose it for himself. But if Dean is still in purgatory, if this is all one last dream before death- he sure as hell isn’t going to squander it. 

He feels looser, easier in the freedom that it’s like a dream. Of course a djinn would give him his brother and take away the outside world, he wouldn’t have to share him with anyone, knows he’ll be safe. 

“Awesome,” Dean says with a grin. 

“I love you,” Sam says. 

And Dean doesn’t brush it off, doesn’t tell him that emotional declarations are for near-death experiences only. Doesn’t say that this isn’t one of those movies, or that Sam must be having his time of the month.

“C’mere,” he beckons instead, and Sam goes to his arms. Dean’s still sitting in the high kitchen stool, puts them eye level. Dean’s grip tightens, brings their bodies flush together. “You’re mine Sammy, never letting you go again.” 

Sam slumps into his shoulder, soaks up all the attention. His mind keeps flicking between what fake Dean- projected dream Dean really- is doing and what his brother would really do. It’s going to give him a headache, but then Dean is cupping his face, brings him back up. 

“You’ll always be mine,” Dean murmurs, and brings their lips together. 

Dean wouldn’t- he shouldn’t be twisting his memory like this, oh god- Dean can’t- 

Dean’s tongue parts his lips, and Sam gives in. He already succumbed to this dream verse, it’s silly to deny himself now. Dean tastes like steak and beer, like he must, and it isn’t long until they’re on the small cabin bed. 

.

Sam falls into a new routine, a much more pleasurable one. He’s almost always up first, works out and takes a warm shower before crawling back into bed with Dean. Sometimes he wakes him, mouth sucking down his cock, and sometimes he just lays between his legs as time passes, Dean’s cock soft and warm and doesn’t move his lips to wake him. Sometimes he wakes Dean with softer kisses, peppered over each and every freckle on his cheeks. Sometimes Dean slips into his shower, soaps him up good before leaning him against the wall and fucking him until the water goes cold. And sometimes, Sam simply lays with him, staring at Dean’s forever young face. He could never tire of him, could consume him forever. (It resonates with something Sam doesn’t want to think about, doesn’t have to- this is _his_ dream.)

Dean does all the cooking and grocery shopping, never asks why Sam doesn’t want to leave the cabin. His cooking is unnaturally perfect and Sam never questions that his ‘new’ recipes always turn out fantastic. He just does the dishes with a soft smile, they made a home. 

They get a few calls from hunters, Dean has all of their phones forwarded to his, disposes of the old ones. There’s no point in having like fifty burner phones when one will do, Dean had said. And Sam didn’t bother listing the reasons why it mattered, just did the research for imaginary cases. Dean got bored then, would sometimes slip under the desk with a mischievous grin. 

It’s all going well until it isn’t, and reality slams back into him rudely. 

Dean’s cleaning the guns they never use anymore, when his hand slips and he touches a knife, skin sizzling. 

Sam jumps up at the noise, reaching for the nearest silver knife, throws it at him. 

“What the fuck is going on here?” Sam demands when it doesn’t kill him. 

The shifter laughs, plucks the knife out of his chest and approaches slowly. “You’ve known I’m Dean 2.0 from the beginning Sammy. No need to play coy now.” 

Sam’s eyes flit between the weapons bag and the knife in his hand. “You- you switched all the silver knives.” 

He chuckles, “Give the man a cigar! Well, I did miss one. My bad kiddo.” 

Sam gulps, backing up, “You’re real.” 

The shifter grins wide, all teeth, “You’re more fucked in the head than I thought baby bro.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Sam spits out, trying to circle to the weapons bag. 

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he says, flashing forward, a blow to the head knocking Sam unconscious. 

.

Sam wakes up tied to their bed, spread eagle with the knots too tight to even try to undo one-handed. His wrists and ankles already ache a bit, and he’s sure it’s only going to get worse. A fucking shifter, a goddamn shifter had been living with him. He’d- _fuck_. 

“Hey baby,” he says, and Sam opens his eyes, glares as not-Dean joins him on the bed, kneels between his thighs. “You could have just played along, no need for all this,” he says gesturing, “I know it can’t be easy after the cage.” 

Sam spits in his face, “Shut up, you don’t know anything.” 

He sighs, wipes away the spit and backhands him hard, making his ears ring. “We’ve been here for months Sam. I know everything about you and your brother, I _am_ your brother. A better Dean and you wanted _me_. The version that loves you back, the me that’s just as twisted as you.

“I wore your brother’s face for too long, it became my own by mistake. But then I found you.” The shifter strokes his face softly, Sam’s stomach twisting with delight and disgust. “And I knew it, this was my true skin. You’ll always be mine Sammy, my little-”

A silver blade pierces the shifter’s chest, and he’s roughly shoved off him. There’s another Dean standing behind him, Sam wonders how they both missed this one coming in, how long it’s been there.

“I’m the only one that gets to call him that,” he says, wiping the knife on his jeans before cutting Sam loose. “You alright Sam?” 

Sam rubs his wrists, eyeing the new Dean warily. “What are you?” 

“Fair,” Dean says nodding to a copy of his corpse. “I just killed with silver so, you got some holy water and salt?” 

“Yeah,” Sam says, getting some from the bedside cabinet. 

Dean passes both tests, “It’s me Sam. What have you been doing? Were you hunting a shifter?” 

Sam does the same, and Dean’s words convinced him even more than the tests. This wasn’t a dream or illusion, it’s really Dean. His stomach twists, bile burning that he swallows back down. 

“Food,” Sam says, and they move into the kitchen. He starts cooking some pasta, simple enough that even he can’t fuck it up. He only goes in the fridge once for beer, winces at the lamb chops that were supposed to be tonight’s dinner. Dean- _not-Dean_ \- had been so excited about them. 

“I haven’t been hunting,” Sam says, stirring the pasta. 

“What? What the hell have you been doing then?” 

Sam bites his lip, and Dean gets up, starts really looking around the cabin. “Have you been playing house with fake me? Really Sam?” 

Sam swallows, “I-”

“You couldn’t tell it wasn’t _me_?” Dean yells, hand slapping down on the counter. “How many people have died in the past year Sam? How could you be so selfish-”

“I didn’t think it was real!” Sam exclaims. “I thought it was a djinn okay?” 

“You thought-” Dean deflates, rubs a hand down his face, “And you just gave up? You were fine dying on me.” 

Sam exhales, but Dean keeps going. “No, that’s just perfect. It’s not like I was hunting monsters in purgatory all year, fighting to stay alive and come back while you were just doing- whatever this is.” 

“Well?” Dean demands. “You wanna explain that to me?” 

Sam blinks away the wetness, “I couldn’t find a way to get you out of purgatory. There was nothing, it was hopeless. I was hopeless. And then not-you appeared, and everything was too easy. We were happy and researching for other hunters and it didn’t feel real.” 

Sam remembers the pasta then, drains the overcooked and soft noodles. They’re pathetic, he’s pathetic. He’s empathizing with a fucking bowl of pasta. 

“What changed?” Dean asks. “I didn’t exactly walk in on domestic cabin bliss.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, plating the food. “The shifter had swapped out all the silver knives, but he missed one. That’s when I realized it wasn’t a dream.” 

Dean eats half a noddle before standing, “Obviously you weren’t the one cooking.” 

“Uh no,” Sam mumbles. 

“Whatever, grab your stuff. This place is giving me the creeps. We’ll stop by a diner on the road.” 

And Sam hates leaving the cabin messy- worse that it’ll be left this way for who knows how long, mold growing on the floppy noodles. But Dean is here, for real, and Sam isn’t going to fuck that up. He packs quickly as if Dean won’t remember Rufus’s cabin only has one bed and a couch that’s clearly without bedding. Dean doesn’t say anything about it though. 

“So did you talk to any of the hunters or…?” Dean asks. 

“No, De- the shifter did.”

“Have you checked the phones lately?” 

Sam swallows, fishing a cell out of the shifter’s pocket. “No, they were all supposed to be forwarded to this one.”

Dean rolls his eyes, “Yeah I’m sure that happened. Alright let’s barbecue up fake me and then get some real barbecue. There’s a case only sixty miles from here, probably vamps. You can research the area while I play phone tag.” 

Sam follows him, out into the backyard to burn the body and then to the impala’s passenger seat. He hates that there’s any longing in his chest as they leave. He has the _real_ Dean- no part of him should want to go back to not-dreamland. The shapeshifter’s words echo in his head, _you wanted me_ , and Sam’s sick, shouldn’t be allowed near real Dean. 

“Hey,” Dean says as they pull into a local diner. “You alright?” 

“Yeah,” Sam lies. “What about you?” 

Dean grins, “We’re back, I’m awesome.” 

Sam smiles, can fake it until things feel almost normal again. It doesn’t matter that he knows what Dean tastes like everywhere or what he sounds like when- it’s not true anyways. He only has imitation knowledge, really knowledge of the shifter. And maybe if he thinks that enough times, engraves it into the insides of his skull, he’ll even believe it. 

(At least in the cage Lucifer only used Dean to torture, that was easier to get over.)

“Hey, you coming?” Dean asks, outside the car. 

“Yeah, shit,” Sam says, undoing his seat belt and getting out. “Sorry.” 

Dean shrugs, “S’okay. This place is supposed to have the best pie in state.” 

Sam grabs his laptop from the backseat with a soft laugh. “How convenient.”

“You bet. I’m thinking five course meal, all pie,” Dean says with pure glee.

Sam snorts, “Course six is gonna be upchucking.” 

Dean opens the door, bell tinkling, “Ye of little faith Sammy. Just you wait.” 

And Sam follows him in, the walk back into civilization easier than he thought it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the [wincest writing challenge](http://wincestwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/), my prompt was shifter!dean
> 
> often found weeping over wincest on [my tumblr](https://mindyfication.tumblr.com/)


End file.
